


I was disappearing in plain sight

by YourFadedGlory (HisNameWasAce)



Series: Judgement [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Hurt Steve Rogers, M/M, Neglect, Non-Explicit Torture, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Self induced vomiting, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 02:52:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7024417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HisNameWasAce/pseuds/YourFadedGlory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They change the pills again.</p>
<p>“Third time's the charm,” Ross had said, the last words Steve heard before his vision grayed out and he sank into some place warm and painless</p>
            </blockquote>





	I was disappearing in plain sight

**Author's Note:**

>  
> 
> _“Of pain you could wish only one thing: that it should stop. Nothing in the world was so bad as physical pain. In the face of pain there are no heroes.”  
>  ― George Orwell, 1984_  
> 

His right leg breaks like a toothpick, his tibia and fibula halved cleanly. It takes a moment for Steve’s brain to catch up with the pain, even longer for his vocal chords to shake free of their rust and let loose a scream. Ross shoves a rag in his mouth to stop the noise, but they do nothing to stop the pain. They throw him back on a cot with nothing but two metal rods tied with some nylon cord as a makeshift splint.

 

They’re testing the serum, what’s left of it. That’s the only logical conclusion. He’s been exposed to and contracted everything from the common cold to pneumonia, this is the next step.

 

It used to be that his bones took a day or two to heal, never more than three. Steve isn’t sure if it’s his constant hobbling on the injured limb or the state of his body, but this time it takes three full weeks for the bones to fuse fully enough to pass the physician’s inspection. Those three weeks feel like an eternity, but from what he gathers while laying naked and cold on the sterile steel examining table, it’s still too fast.

 

Ross has them adjust the pills again. They’re purple now, lavender really, and they come in threes not twos. It’s the most color he’s seen since Andrew left the rotation and took the colored pencils with him. Steve can’t help but think they’re pretty, especially in comparison to the pale brown mush they’re served with, it’s always a bit of a disappointment when he has to swallow them and the color is gone.

 

They make him nauseous like the chalky yellow ovals had, only this time instead of having his head down the toilet a few hours after every meal, the sensation sits low in his gut and stays there. It’s like being balanced on a knife edge, knowing a tip in either direction is going to send him and his bowls of mush over the regurgitating edge. After a few days, Steve sticks his finger down his throat and the relief is almost instantaneous. It lasts until his next meal, when instead of three pills, there are six. He doesn’t dare give into the urge, for fear of getting nine.

 

The second time they strap him down to the table, Steve knows what’s coming. His left leg snaps as easily as the right, clean breaks in both his tibia and fibula. The pain works like a firecracker, the initial flare is all consuming but it’s quick to fade, the dying embers fanned as cold latex hands jostled his limp limb into position between the two metal rods and nylon string.

 

It takes four weeks instead of three.

 

They change the pills again.

 

“Third time's the charm,” Ross had said, the last words Steve heard before his vision grayed out and he sank into some place warm and painless. It wasn’t a clean break, the comminuted fracture a result of the previous break and a calcium deficiency, scattering his tibia and fibula into a jigsaw puzzle of pieces. Christmas come early for Ross and his researchers.

 

Steve laid in his cot and prayed for sleep.

 

Week three came and went. He’d taken to peeing in the styrofoam cups, his leg couldn’t bear the weight needed to hobble to the toilet, let alone the shower. A guard, fed up with the ripening smell, took to dumping the cups and providing a package of baby wipes every few days. It wasn’t sketchbooks and colored pencils, but it was something, and Steve found himself unbelievably grateful as he dragged the damp wipe over the jut of his ribs and through his oil slick hair.

 

Held together by rods and twine it was a wonder the bones healed at all. Twelve weeks in total before Steve found himself naked and shivering on the steel examining table, x-rays of his leg glowing on the far wall light screen. They were bones, whole, if not a little malformed.

 

“Congratulations, you’ve crippled Captain America,” the physician drawled, never appearing all that interested in Ross, but never objecting to his methods.

 

“He’s no Captain, not anymore,” Ross replied, jerking his head at the guards.

 

Steve did his best not to dwell on the dissolution of his title as they bodily hauled him back to his cell. He absolutely refused to think about how it was probably because he wouldn’t have made it the whole way back if they’d tried to make him walk.

 

* * *

 

“Please, I’ve been calling for _months_ , I just need five minutes with him,” Andrew begged, clutching the three worn sketchbooks under his arm.

 

“I’m sorry sir, Mr. Stark is a very busy man and all meetings are subject to change,” the receptionist replied coolly, her acrylic nails pecking at the keyboard.

 

“Yes with the hospital building and grant giving, but I have to see him, it’s about Steve Rogers!” Andrew said, voice rising as he vented his frustration. He’d scoured all of New York for just one Avenger or Ex-Avenger, but the only ones left in the public eye were Jim Rhodes and Vision, both of which were holed up in the Avengers compound, and Tony Stark himself. For a man who’d made himself the embodiment of humanitarianism over the past few years, his face a symbol of hope and funding the world over, he was impossibly hard to find in person.

 

“If you have tips about Captain America, you’re too the call the hotline. If that’s all sir, please see yourself form the building, and a have a nice day.”

 

Andrew huffed out a gusty sigh, turning around and smacking right dab into a balding middle aged man in the most nondescript yet surprisingly well tailored suit he’d ever seen. A few of the sketches escaped their books and as he knelt down to collect them he found the other man kneeling in front of him to help, pausing as he reached the picture of a man with long hair laid out on a forest floor, eyes shut and face lax despite the bullet hole in his head.

 

“Who did you say you were?” The man asked, his face so blank it might as well have been a plastic Halloween mask.

 

“No one,” Andrew said, pulling the sketch from his hand and tucking it back into safety, only to have a badge practically shoved in his face.

 

“Phil Coulson, Director of Shield,” The spook in the suit said, his mask cracking a bit at the edges of his tense smile. “Now let’s try this again, who are you?”

**Author's Note:**

> Probably two or three installments left, sorry about how short this one is, I'm not built for long haul writing.
> 
> Also a big thanks to all of the very kind comments on part one. Feedback means the world to me, whether it's on my writing or just your personal opinion on Steve, I love hearing it all.


End file.
